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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

New Rabbinical Court in N.Y. To Address 'Agunot.'

A new Rabbinical court
that will address the issue of women whose husbands refuse to give them a
religious writ of divorce (known as Agunot) will be established next year in
New York.

The establishment of the
court (Beit Din) was announced on Sunday at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist
Alliance conference in New York.

The court, which will not
have any institutional affiliation, will be headed by Rabbi Simcha Krauss of
Jerusalem. Krauss, a leading Modern Orthodox rabbi and widely respected
scholar, said that he would like to establish open an affiliate court in Israel
eventually.

He is working on
attaining approval from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, which is necessary if the
court’s judgments are to be upheld under Israeli law.

The court will utilize
little-used and obscure resources in Jewish religious law to free agunot,
including the excommunication from communal prayer of their husbands. It will
also rely on Sephardic laws, which allow for greater initiative from women in
divorce cases.

Krauss said he will leave
“no door unopened” in his quest to address the plight of Agunot.

"The goal of this
project is to humanize the beit din,” Krauss said. “You can’t solve these
situations with sleight of hand. But hopefully we can use the right
methodology, so that even these situations get solved.”

He acknowledged that the
biggest challenge facing any avowedly independent religious court was
mainstream acceptance, particularly within the Haredi Orthodox communities.

“Nobody wants agunot,” he
said. “So, hopefully, if [haredim] see that we are solving these cases, maybe
they will come to us. Or maybe they will follow.”